Lots of plumbers, but no Joes: Candidates are more careful when naming names this year

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, talks to the media about running for Congress at Tony Packo's in Toledo, Ohio, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. Wurzelbacher, a man whose moniker became a household name during the 2008 presidential race, says he's running in Ohio's 9th U.S. House district because he's angry about the economy and the way politicians try to patch problems with duct tape. (AP Photo/Madalyn Ruggiero)

A teacher in Las Vegas told President Barack Obama that some students in her class have to sit on the floor. A woman in New Hampshire told Republican challenger Mitt Romney that she couldn’t afford health insurance.

It’s a classic moment in a national debate: the everyday person who is a perfect example of the policy the candidate is discussing.

But one thing was missing last week at the first presidential debate in Denver: names. In fact, neither candidate gave any specific identifying information that could be used to track down the people behind their anecdotes.

Campaign analysts expect the trend to continue at Thursday’s debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Paul Ryan. The combination of amateur political sleuths on social media sites such as Twitter and 24-hour cable news channels with an endless appetite for trivia has made naming names simply too risky.

“I don’t think either of these candidates wants to have their own Joe the Plumber,” said Eric Ostermeier, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota who writes the Smart Politics blog.

Joe the Plumber, whose real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher, became famous in the 2008 elections when he challenged Obama’s tax plans on small businesses during a campaign stop in Ohio. Three days later, Republican nominee John McCain made multiple references to him during the third presidential debate.

Wurzelbacher made the rounds on TV news shows and became a regular at McCain rallies. But he also drew controversy when questions were raised about whether he was licensed to work as a plumber and why he had a lien for nonpayment of taxes.

But even when a candidate doesn’t drop a name, there’s no guarantee the person behind the anecdote won’t be found out.

During the presidential debate, Romney cited a man “in the electronics business in St. Louis” to make a point about taxes. By the next day, a local TV station had identified him as Michael Bonadio, owner of Reason Amplifier Co., a guitar amps manufacturer.

Nathan Gonzales, an analyst with the Rothenberg Political Report in Washington, says that campaigns need to be extra careful to check the backgrounds of the people they’re citing to make their cases. Since many of them have never been in the public eye before, they haven’t been vetted, he said.

“Both parties know the instant you put a specific person out there, the other side will try to poke holes in their story and their credibility,” he said. “They become part of the game.”

Ostermeier says there are three major ways that name-dropping everyday people can go wrong.

First, they might not back up the candidate’s version of their story when interviewed by reporters.

Second, even if they do back up the account, they may not be telling their own story accurately.

Thirdly, they could be another Joe the Plumber, with aspects of their lives that are troublesome.

During the 2000 election, Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore met an Iowa retiree named Winifred Skinner at a campaign event who said she was making spare cash for her heart medication by picking up cans and bottles on the side of the road. Conservative commentators soon started poking holes in her story, noting that her son was well-off.

Margarita Noriega, a social media strategist with the Harbour Group in Washington, said the Skinner story is an example of why politicians should avoid bringing regular people into the harsh spotlight of politics. She argued it’s not fair to them.

“From a strategic perspective, it’s better to protect these people from being named at all,” she said. “Any mistake that they have ever made now becomes a metaphor for whatever the opposition is looking to attack the campaign about.”

Of course, some people enjoy the spotlight.

After his turn in the 2008 elections, Wurzelbacher went on the CBS Evening News, Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show and “Good Morning America.” He co-wrote a book, did some work as a motivational speaker and attended other political rallies.